Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi has called upon the Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh and Petroleum Minister Murali Deora to formulate a special compensation package for the Numaligarh Refinery Limited (NRL) to enable the refinery to tide over the crisis faced by it. In a letter to the Prime Minister, the Chief Minister also called for restoring 100 percent excise duty relief to the Refinery, which was reduced to 50 per cent in 2002. The Chief Minister pointed out that the NRL was established in pursuance of the historic Assam Accord, signed in 1985 and Assam Government is also a shareholder of the NRL. Since its commissioning in 2000, the NRL has been performing well. He said that the retail outlets opened by the NRL were receiving very encouraging response from the people. The NRL has so far established around a hundred retail outlets, of which, around 60 are in Assam. Gogoi said that the NRL has started facing severe loss in retail marketing because of the unprecedented increase in the price of crude oil and non-availability of compensation package provided to other public sector oil companies like IOCL, BPCL and HPCL. He said that the loss from retail marketing of the NRL in the current financial year has been estimated to the tune of Rs 500 crore and for a small company like the NRL, it would not be possible to absorb the loss. He also pointed out that if the retail outlets of the NRL are to be closed down, it would send a negative signal to the people of Assam. The Chief Minister demanded that the Centre should prepare a special compensation package to the NRL in line with the packages offered to other public sector oil companies without affecting the royalty on crude oil payable to Assam. He also suggested that a special discount of around 15 to per cent on Assam crude might be considered for NRL as at the current level of crude oil price, the Oil India Limited and ONGC are earning a very good margin. The Chief Minister has written a similar letter to the Petroleum Minister.